During June, most discussion was raised by the blog entry where Risto Linturi discussed how Émile Durkheims concepts of mechanical and organic solidarity apply to the values of the youth and the adults in today’s society. Adults in their fifties object to the youth sharing their everyday lives on the internet, claiming to “know better”. At the same time, the adults keep up different roles for different social situations: work, hobbies, home, family. In the youth’s world there is only one role, visible to all through the social networks of the internet, for example. Linturi acknowledges the benefits of the “aquarium life” for the future; living with a number of different roles does not promote openness and trust, sharing knowledge or specialisation.
Patents and intellectual property rights are a continuous hot topic in global business. Jari Kaivo-oja introduced the recent work by the European Patent Office that studied the future of the patent system. The project created four scenarios: Market business, Whose Game?, Trees of Knowledge and Blue Skies. The scenarios are available in English on the EPO.org website.
The blog series for introducing Finnish foresight experts continued with an interview of Jyrki Aakkula from MTT Agrifood Research Finland.